Conversations in the Dark
by etcetera nine
Summary: "Don't do this to yourself, Dot," Mouse told her. "Nothin' good can come of it. They're all right. You gotta try to believe it. You gotta have something to hold out for."


She shifted in the dark, trying to get comfortable on her narrow cot. The pain in her side hurt less now, the throbbing settling into a dull ache. She moved to the left slightly, trying to be as quiet as possible. Maybe if she—

Pain, again. A bright flare of it. She hissed through her teeth.

"Dot? You all right, sugar?" Mouse's voice rang clearly from her cot on the other side of the room.

"I'm fine, Mouse," she said. She pressed her hand to her side. "Go back to sleep."

"Wasn't sleeping," Mouse replied. "And you can stop lyin', you're terrible at it. I know you're hurting—that thing in the game got you good."

Dot shuddered. That thing… some sort of decaying zombie-soldier hybrid, with a sprite's face but eyes that were empty, like everything behind them had been erased. If Mouse hadn't been there to pull her away in time…

Here, at night, in the pitch-black of the warehouse room that was their current hideout, she could still see the thing's face as it knelt down, its rotting hand reaching for her throat—

"I'll tape you up again tomorrow," Mouse was saying. "Tighter, next time. Maybe that'll help. I'm not too sure what else to do for bruised ribs, and seeing as we're without a medical unit…"

Without a medical unit, Dot thought. Without a medical unit, without any of their equipment, or their weapons, or the Principal Office, or…

"Well… we gotta do what we can, right?" finished Mouse.

Breathe, Dot told herself. In and out. Don't think about it. Don't think about—

"Yeah, you're definitely not fine," Mouse said. Dot heard two soft thumps—Mouse's boots hitting the floor—and she knew Mouse had sat up. Next, she'd take out her katana and—

There was a soft flicking noise as the katana started cutting through the air. Dot had seen it before and could picture it now, Mouse moving the katana in circles, flipping it from hand to hand, a quick parry, a stab like a gasp in the dark. She played with it when she was bored, or angry, or tense, or annoyed with her for something—

"You're doing that weird breathin' thing you do when you're tryin' not to cry, Dot. I can hear it. Out with it," Mouse said. Her katana kept swishing, slicing through the darkness. "I said out with it, Dot."

"We need to stop going into games," Dot said, staring up the ceiling.

The air was silent, suddenly. "What?"

"We need to stop going into games," Dot repeated. She turned, trying to lift herself on her elbows a bit to talk in Mouse's direction. "We were in that game for nearly half a second, Mouse, and by the time we got out we lost another sector to one of Megabyte's attacks. If we weren't in that game, we could have stopped him. We could have—"

"I told you to stop thinkin' like that!" said Mouse, and Dot could hear the scowl in her voice from across the room. "You _can't_ think like that Dot, you'll drive yourself random. We make the best decisions we can at the time, and then we deal with the aftermath. We weighed the risks for this one—"

"And we were wrong," Dot broke in, fighting back a sob. She ran a hand over her face, hoping to hold off the tears. "We were wrong and now a whole sector of people have been infected—"

"What, and being nullified would be a better alternative?" The katana started swishing through the air again. "Dot, come on. Maybe… What about I go in on my own for the next one, and you can stay here to—"

"No," Dot said. "Absolutely not. You're right, I need to stay here—with my people." She thought of the handful of stragglers who'd followed them as they fled the Principal Office, now sleeping in the open warehouse behind their door, waiting for the morning, waiting for her next command. "But you're not going in alone, Mouse. You're not experienced enough, it's not an option."

"Excuse me?" asked Mouse, incredulous.

"I said no, Mouse," Dot told her. "That's an order."

Dot heard a clinking of armor and knew that Mouse had stood up. "You think you can order me out of the games? You can't order me to stay behind Dot, I'm not Enzo—" Abruptly, she stopped.

"Don't." In and out. Keep breathing. Don't think about it. Don't cry. "Mouse... Please."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…" Mouse trailed off. "I didn't mean…" She sighed. "You know my problems with runnin' my mouth off. I wasn't thinkin'."

"I know," said Dot, then added quietly, "It's just that… I need you here, Mouse."

"Dot…" A soft thump as Mouse sat down again. "All right. All right." She paused. "So. Can I assume you have a plan in place to evacuate the sectors when the next game starts to come down?"

"You can," Dot replied. "And I do. I'll brief everyone tomorrow morning, then you can send the messengers out."

Mouse laughed, although it sounded like it was mostly to herself. "Same old Dot."

Dot laughed a little too, though it hurt her side to do so. "Same old Dot," she agreed.

She heard Mouse settling back into her cot. Everything was quiet for a few nanos, and then—

"I miss 'em, too, ya know," Mouse said quietly. "Not like you must. But I do, and... I really think they're all right, sugar. AndrAIa's icon worked before, so there's no reason it wouldn't have worked in reverse—and for Enzo, too. Heck, I bet even Frisket's fine. And you know he'd probably take a bite outta anything that would try to hurt your little brother, anyway."

Another nano of silence.

"And we didn't find any nulls," said Mouse, as if she hadn't stopped talking.

"We didn't look for very long, though," Dot answered. Her throat hurt from trying not to cry again.

"Well, we had about a dozen ABCs chasing us, sugar. We couldn't exactly do a leisurely walkthrough of the sector."

"Maybe we could go back—" Dot started to say.

"Don't do this to yourself, Dot," Mouse told her. "Nothin' good can come of it. They're all right. You gotta try to believe it. You gotta have something to hold out for."

"But that's just it, Mouse! I don't have anything! I lost my home, I lost everyone I love, I lost…" She was crying now, and she knew it was useless to try to stop it. She gestured, upset, towards the doorway, even though she knew Mouse couldn't see it. "And everyone out there keeps looking to me like I know what I'm doing, but I _don't_ , and…" In and out. Breathe, Dot. Keep breathing, don't cry, don't think about— "Oh, Mouse. I've lost everything."

Mouse didn't reply, waiting for her to get her sobbing under control. Dot was grateful for it, for the silence, and after a nano, she had composed herself, just a slight hitch in her breathing to show that she had cried at all.

Her side throbbed.

"I'm still here, Dot," Mouse said, quietly. "I ain't goin' nowhere. And we'll take things one second at a time, just like we've been doin', tryin' to help as many as we can with what little we've got. All right?"

"All right, Mouse," Dot repeated, although there wasn't much feeling behind it.

"Thatta girl," said Mouse. "And… your brother will come home. Just try to believe it. We'll see them all again. Phong, and your brother, and AndrAIa and Frisket, and—" She stopped.

"You can say it," Dot said. Her voice sounded dull, empty. "You can say his name. I've cried enough for tonight, I won't do it again."

"And Bob," Mouse finished. "Dot," she said quietly, "He'll come home to you, too. If anyone can do it, he can. He will. Just... try to hold out, have some hope for him."

"That's a lot of hope to hold on to, Mouse," Dot told her. She focused on the darkness above her, trying to picture anything except Bob's face, the last time she saw him, wide-eyed and terrified, banging on the glass, trying to claw his way out of the cage Megabyte had trapped him in. Dot blinked, and he was gone. "You know… I never thought you were such an optimist."

Mouse laughed. "That's the Mouse, sugar. Full of surprises."

"Sometimes…" Dot began. "Sometimes I forget he's gone, and I keep expecting him to swoop in on his zip board to save the day, with one of his goofy catch-phrases."

"And that cocky grin on his face," said Mouse. She laughed. "Stay frosty!"

"I don't _think_ so," said Dot, and smiled despite herself. "I miss him, Mouse."

Mouse sighed. "I miss him, too. But… not like you do, I reckon."

Dot didn't even have the energy to deny it.

"Did you…" Mouse said, after a pause. Dot could hear her hesitating. "Did you two ever…"

"No," Dot said. "We didn't."

"Not even—"

"No, Mouse." In the minutes that had passed since Bob was lost to them, she tried not to think about what could have been, tried not to regret. It would have just made everything hurt more, she had decided. Don't think about it. "We never even kissed."

"User," Mouse let out a low whistle. "Not even once, huh? I woulda thought… Guess not."

Dot said nothing. She tried not to think of him, of a warm body lying next to her, strong arms comforting her. A pale blue hand in hers.

But then… "Mouse, did _you_ and Bob ever…"

"Nah," Mouse said. Dot heard a muted, rhythmic noise—Mouse hitting her katana against her boot. "Not my type, not really. I like 'em more mysterious. Bob is just too…"

"Good?" Dot volunteered. She tried not to think about his eyes, how they changed when he smiled.

"Yeah, too good," said Mouse. The tapping stopped.

Dot sighed, quietly.

"We kissed a few times, though," Mouse added, as an afterthought.

"What?!" cried Dot, and tried to rise up off the cot, only for the pain in her side to burn again. "For the love of the User—" She cursed, touching her ribs gingerly.

Mouse laughed delightedly. "Dot, careful there, now. You wouldn't be jealous, would you, sugar?"

"No," said Dot shortly. And then—"Just how many is a few?"

"Ah, once or twice? Oh no, wait. Three…" She laughed. "Can't forget about that one. Make it four. Definitely four." She paused. "No more than five."

"No more than five and he's not your type?!"

"How do you think I got out of jail when I was arrested for trying to hack into the Supercomputer?" Mouse replied.

Dot could just picture her satisfied grin. "Mouse!"

"Keep your format on, Dot, it was before I even came to this system. Before Bob did, too." Mouse laughed again. "And you said you're not jealous, eh sugar?"

"No," Dot said. She felt like an idiot. Her face was burning, and she was grateful for the dark.

"Mmmhmm. Told ya. Terrible liar," she teased.

"I don't care what you think," Dot said, annoyed and lying again. She shifted in her cot, angrily. "And it's late. Go to sleep, Mouse."

"He's a good kisser, though. When he's not taken completely by surprise."

"...Mouse."

"Just thought you should know," Mouse said. "For when he comes home."

"For when he comes home," Dot echoed. "All right, Mouse. Whatever you say."

"Just do me a favor, will ya? When I see him again, I'm gonna plant one more kiss on his goofy little face—then he's all yours. Deal?"

She thought about Bob, coming home to her, with Enzo and AndrAIa and everyone they'd lost. It was an impossibility so enormous, like a dream made tangible. And even if they did—even if Mouse was right, and she would see them all again, nothing could ever be like it was before. Nothing would ever be the same.

But still. She let herself think about it, and she smiled. "Deal. Now—sleep."

"All right, bossy britches," Mouse said. "Don't forget to remind me to tape you up again tomorrow."

Dot had, in fact, almost forgotten the pain in her ribs. She ran her fingers lightly along the tape, wondering how long she'd have to live with it, how well it would hold her together. There was no sound except for Mouse's even breathing from across the room.

"Mouse?"

"Yeah, Dot?"

"Do you think… Do you think it'll hurt less, tomorrow?"

"I hope so, sugar," Mouse said, and Dot closed her eyes against the darkness.

* * *

 _A/N: I feel like I am probably posting this to a big empty room, several decades too late, but I couldn't help myself. I loved Reboot as a kid and recently rediscovered it, and the character development_ _—and the angst!_ _—is so intense. What a great show this was. So if anyone's still out there, please review and let me know!_


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